Noach Dear Making Calls About Jumping Into State Senate Race

Former City Councilman Noach Dear could be about to enter the State Senate race for a heavily Orthodox Jewish seat in Brooklyn.

The news was first reported by Yossi Gestetner, who tweeted Mr. Dear “is calling around friends telling them he is 90% ready” to announce his candidacy. Sources subsequently confirmed to The Politicker that Mr. Dear is indeed making calls about the run.

Mr. Dear’s signals come on the heels of another candidate, former Councilman Simcha Felder, signaling his intentions to run for the seat, setting up a potential conflict with Mr. Dear’s successor in the City Council. City & State‘s sources indicated Mr. Felder would caucus with the Democrats in the State Senate … unless his vote was crucial for the Republicans to hang onto the majority, which would be a big caveat indeed.

One source suggested Mr. Dear’s own party loyalty in the election may still be up in the air. His name was floated as a potential Republican candidate to replace Anthony Weiner in Congress even though he himself first ran against Mr. Weiner as a Democrat after then-Rep. Chuck Schumer left the seat for higher office.

As has been previously noted, the Democratic primary electorate in this new Orthodox Jewish seat will be very conservative, so it would be more than feasible that a Democrat like Mr. Dear could run promising to join Republican Majority Leader Dean Skelos’ team if elected.

To run on the Republican line, Mr. Dear would need the blessing of the Brooklyn County GOP, which is a big question mark as two other candidates, Nachman Caller and David Storobin, have also said they would definitely be running in the Republican primary.

Mr. Storobin, currently locked in an extremely close count of a special election for an overlapping State Senate district that took place last March, might be running for the seat as an incumbent state senator.